"Kagame, who attended a U.S. military school in
Leavenworth, Kan., while an intelligence officer in the Ugandan army, ..."

"In a related development, The Washington Post
reported Saturday that U.S. involvement with the Rwandan army has been
far more extensive than previously disclosed."

Associated Press

August 16, 1997

8 Rwandan Soldiers Held on Murders

GISENYI, Rwanda (AP) -- Eight Rwandan soldiers have been arrested for
killing civilians and looting their homes during military action against
Hutu rebels in northwestern Rwanda, the defense minister said Saturday.

The arrests followed fresh allegations about the Rwandan army's mistreatment
of civilians as it tries to quell a growing Hutu insurgency. The military
has been dogged by such charges ever since its rebel forerunner, the Tutsi-led
Rwandan Patriotic Front, ousted the hard-line Hutu government in 1994.

Defense Minister Paul Kagame lent some credence to the latest allegations
Saturday, disclosing to reporters that government soldiers had been taken
into custody for pillaging and killing ``some'' people during the military
offensive in Gisenyi a week ago. He called the soldiers' behavor ``acts
of indiscipline.''

It was not immediately known whether the soldiers would be tried in
a civilian or military court. Troops previously accused of killing civilians
have been summarily executed.

The anti-government insurgency is made up of members of the former government
army and allied Hutu militias whom the government ousted three years ago
to end a three-month genocide that took the lives of at least 500,000 ethnic
Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Kagame, who attended a U.S. military school in Leavenworth, Kan.,
while an intelligence officer in the Ugandan army, has said he will
not tolerate any abuse of civilians by his soldiers. But doubts persist
about his ability to control the army, which has mushroomed since he led
it as a tight-knit rebel force.

Kagame downplayed the arrests of soldiers this week, saying there are
a few bad troops in any army.

``I think of the tens of thousands of soldiers we have, I am sure we
are not likely to be so lucky to have all of them as angels,'' he said.

Several human rights organizations have alleged that the army has killed
thousands of civilians during counter-insurgency operations in recent months.

In testimony before a U.S. House of Representatives panel July 16, Physicians
for Human Rights said the Rwandan army was committing human rights abuses
against civilians in northwestern Rwanda. The Boston-based group urged
the suspension of U.S. military aid to Rwanda until the abuses end.

The government recently acknowledged that up to 300 civilians may have
been inadvertently killed during the clashes with rebels in May and June.
Distinguishing between civilians and rebels dressed in civilian clothes
was difficult, it said.

Casualty figures from last weekend's fighting varied widely.

A local army commander, Col. Kayumba Nyamwasa, said 174 people died
-- including 99 prisoners killed during two successful jailbreaks, 15 civilians
and five soldiers.

Media reports put the number of dead at nearly 1,000.

Kagame said he had ordered an investigation into allegations that government
soldiers had killed prisoners during the jailbreaks, but he believed the
prisoners had been killed by fellow insurgents angry at those who refused
to leave the jails.

Col. Kayumba said two of the soldiers were arrested for killing five
people when they entered a civilian home to steal money.

Two soldiers were arrested for looting a carpentry shop, and three officers
detained for not stopping their troops from looting a market, he said.

Kayumba said he expected to arrest several more soldiers for the looting.

In a related development, The Washington Post reported Saturday that
U.S. involvement with the Rwandan army has been far more extensive than
previously disclosed.

Hundreds of Rwandan forces have received combat training in addition
to instruction in disaster relief, human rights awareness and land-mine
removal, according to a internal Defense Department chronology quoted by
the Post.

The report said some of the combat training occurred in the weeks leading
up to the start of the insurgency last fall that eventually toppled the
government of President Mobutu Sese Seko in neighboring Zaire, now Congo.
Kagame has said that his forces provided critical assistance to the insurgents,
led by Laurent Kabila.

END QUOTE

"Rwanda's U.S.-trained
defense minister, Paul Kagame, says his country played a major military
role ......."

Associated Press

July 9, 1997

Rwanda Admits Role in Congo Revolt

WASHINGTON - Rwanda's U.S.-trained defense minister, Paul Kagame, says
his country played a major military role in the rebel overthrow of President
Mobutu Sese Seko in neighboring Congo in May.

Kagame told The Washington Post that "mid-level commanders"
from his country led rebel forces in Zaire loyal to new President Laurent
Kabila and provided them with training and guns before the campaign. Kabila
changed the name of the country from Zaire to Congo after Mobutu fled the
country.

Kagame, who studied at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College
at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan., told the newspaper he concluded last August that
the rebellion in Zaire was inevitable after meeting with U.S. officials
in New York and Washington.

"I was looking for a solution from them. They didn't cover up with
any answers, not even suggestions," the 40-year-old Rawandan general
said in the Monday interview, which was published in Wednesday's editions
of the Post.

However, Kagame praised the United States for "taking the right
decision to let it proceed" once the Congolese campaign against Mobutu
was under way.

Rawandan forces participated in the Congolese rebels' capture of four
key cities, Kagame said, including the diamond center of Kisangani on March
15 -- the decisive battle of the war -- and later the capital city of Kinshasa.

"The main bulk of the force was (Congolese) forces except when
there was a need for precision, for things to happen in a precise way,"
he said. "I don't think they were fully prepared to carry it out alone."

Kagame, who led a rebel army takeover of his own country in 1994, said
"it would have been more suitable" if Congolese rebels had done
more of the fighting in the former Zaire but that it also would have been
riskier.

"We did continue to take some role because we thought doing it
halfway would be very dangerous," he said. "We found that the
best way was to take it to the end."

END QUOTE

Associated Press

August 24, 1997

U.S. Special Forces Train Africans

KALAMA HILL, Uganda (AP) -- Flat on their bellies in crackling new American
uniforms, Ugandan soldiers aim their AK-47 assault rifles and mimic the
sounds of gunfire.

The Cincinnati native is one of 120 American soldiers sent to Uganda
and Senegal to train the embryo of what the United States and other Western
nations hope will become an African force to keep peace on the fractious
continent.

``Africa should be able to take care of its own problems. It's the old
concept: If a person's hungry, don't give them a fish, teach them how to
fish,'' said Maj. Matthew Dansbury of Trenton, N.J., commander of the 54-man
Army training team in Uganda.

The soldiers from Fort Bragg, N.C. -- some from the Special Forces Group,
others from the 18th Airborne Corps -- arrived July 21 at this hilltop
overlooking the Kabamba military training school, 150 miles west of Kampala,
Uganda's capital.

For their eight-week stay in the African bush, they came armed with
portable latrines, televisions, VCRs, desktop computers and a wide variety
of field rations.

Fresh from fighting rebels in the restive northwest, the 770 Ugandan
soldiers of the 3rd Batallion, 307th Infantry Brigade, camp in more modest
conditions and live off cornmeal porridge and chapatis.

Many of the soldiers know the American trainers from earlier courses
held in Uganda to improve the quality of the Ugandan People's Defense Force,
a former guerrilla army that helped President Yoweri Museveni come to power
in 1986.

The United States is conducting its first peacekeeper training exercises
in Uganda and Senegal to show support for the two countries whose democratic
and human rights records are fairly clean by African standards.

Although the program covers military basics like land navigation and
marksmanship, it stresses the philosophy and tactics of peacekeeping.

Troops from several African nations drew mixed reviews for their performance
in United Nations peacekeeping operations in the former Yugoslavia. And
Nigerian peacekeepers operating in Liberia and Sierra Leone have been accused
of bias, corruption and unprofessional behavior.

With a $15 million budget put up by the United States, the training
program now has camps at Kalama Hill and at Thies, Senegal, and is to be
expanded by year's end with camps in Mali, Ethiopia and Malawi. Three other
locations are still to be named.

The idea of an all-African peacekeeping force first was floated by then
Secretary of State Warren Christopher during an African tour in late 1996.
Response was less than enthusiastic. South Africa was downright hostile,
fearing Washington wanted it to shoulder the responsibility.

But after Western-led peacekeeping debacles in Somalia and Rwanda --
where U.N.-mandated forces either failed to resolve a conflict or failed
to intervene to stop a genocide -- and the rebellion in the former Zaire
with its thousands of refugees, the big seven industrial nations and Russia
threw their support behind the idea in June.

The United Nations backs the initiative but has not formally endorsed
it.

``You have a very big task because you are pioneers,'' Uganda's acting
chief of staff, Brig. Gen. Ivan Koreta, told the trainees at an opening
ceremony last month.

Lt. Ruhinda Robinson, a Ugandan who attended previous Special Forces
courses and now is being taught how to train his Ugandan colleagues, said:
``It's teaching us how to defend ourselves. Then ... we can help defend
our neighbors.''

Neighboring Sudan is not happy with the U.S. program. An unidentified
Sudanese official was quoted in the state-run newspaper Al Anbaa on Thursday
as saying the course is a ploy to help Uganda train rebels in southern
Sudan.

Sudan has accused Uganda of supporting the Sudan People's Liberation
Army in its rebellion. Museveni's government denies that.

Although the Ugandans are being trained for peacekeeping missions, several
American instructors acknowledged that the soldiers were most highly motivated
by drills that could help them in combat at home.

But Lt. Col. Levi Karahunga, commander of the Ugandan troops, said the
two issues are closely related.

``If a neighbor does not sleep well, then you, too, are not sleeping
well, because you will spend a lot of time checking on him to see how he
is doing.''